Dredge was the most powerful deck at Pro Tour: Valencia, and remained the most powerful coming into the PTQ season. It routinely kills on turn 2, and almost always does so with Cabal Therapy backup. It brought home the most qualifications in the first week of PTQs. Yet somehow, mystifyingly, no one respects it.
Read over the articles and forum posts right here on StarCityGames.com about Extended. Almost all you ever see are offhand comments like the matchup “should be fine” or “might be tough.” It seems that, somehow, far more people are interested in writing off the most powerful deck in the format than actually testing against it.
To be fair, let’s face it – Dredge isn’t much fun to test against (what with all the sitting there watching them flip cards over into their graveyard), it’s hard to find a good pilot for an opponent, and there’s always that nagging “who’s honestly going to play this thing with all the Leylines running around?” factor tugging at your sleeve. After all, only four people out of 180 bothered to Dredge at the New York tournament, and none of them made Top 8.
On the other hand, Dredge players did win both the St. Louis and the Orlando PTQs, and posted several other Top 8s besides, so it’s not fair to say that the deck is actually hated out either, even though people are playing hate cards. How did those couple of Dredge players get through the hate to win their slots? You do the math: if I thoroughly test a deck that is powerful (though admittedly handicapped by the hate in the field) against the field, but very few of my opponents have properly tested against my deck, which of us is more likely to punt the match?
If nobody bothers to test against Dredge, or half-assedly (that’s a word; don’t bother looking it up to make sure) tests against it, the Dredge players who pour their hearts and souls into testing their matchups will have a huge leg up on the unprepared. Enough, perhaps, to overcome the multitude of hate aimed at them, and take down a PTQ or two.
This begs the question, though… if Dredge players can beat the hate by playtesting their deck against the field when the rest of the field declines to properly playtest against theirs, what would happen if you identified a historically successful strategy that wasn’t being hated on, but which people aren’t testing against either?
How many of have Loam as part of our testing gauntlet these days? TEPS? Scepter-Chant?
All three of the above decks were successful last season, but have fallen off everyone’s radar for this season. This wasn’t without reason, naturally; each of these decks has vulnerabilities in today’s Extended that did not exist last season. To me, though, that’s only part of the picture. Obviously you lose value by having a deck that is not as strong against the environment as it once was – Dredge was certainly a lot better before it started getting hated on so much – but how much value do you gain by playing a deck that no one is playtesting against? By tuning a deck that no one would be prepared for even if you were just playing last year’s vulnerable build?
At this early stage in the season, the waters are clear for players to jump ship and find a new deck if their post-Valencia metagame predictions were off. As such, I think it’s worthwhile to take a second look at some of the decks that have fallen off the radar since Valencia, to see if there might be an opportunity for them to succeed in this new environment. I’ll start with last year’s end-of-season powerhouse, Loam.
Loam
Problems
As far as I can tell, the four major things wrong with Loam for Valencia were its lackluster game 1 against Dredge, its vulnerability to Counterbalance, the splash damage it suffered from graveyard hate aimed at Dredge, and the fact that Tarmogoyf survives Devastating Dreams. It may also have had a bad matchup against Enduring Ideal, but between Devastating Dreams and discard spells, I honestly doubt that was anywhere near as much of an issue as Counterbalance, Goyf, and Dredge game one.
Man, that’s a lot of problems.
Environment Changes
Dredge is on the decline, and Ideal is way on the decline. Graveyard hate is not what it was in Valencia. Tarmogoyf, on the other hand, is every bit as omnipresent as he was at the Pro Tour, plus he’s now often paired with Doran for redundant countermeasures to Devastating Dreams. Assuming graveyard hate is now at a manageably low level (Loam thrived when Leylines and Crypts were common sideboard cards, but facing down both, as happened in Valencia, is a whole different story), and now that Enduring Ideal is not a major concern, the remaining problems are Counterbalance, Tarmogoyf, and the Dredge matchup.
Solutions
Replacing the deck’s spot removal components (and perhaps discard as well, if necessary) with a mixture of Pernicious Deeds and Engineered Explosives could be just what the doctor ordered. Both cards disrupt Dredge, act as Counterbalance insurance as soon as they are resolved, and clear away opposing Dorans and Goyfs on the opponent’s end step (or in response to Vindicate) in order to untap, play a big guy, and Armageddon everything away as Loam did so effectively last year.
Conclusions
Will Deed and Explosives be enough to solve Loam’s problems in the new environment? Honestly, I think they have a lot of potential. They might not be enough if everyone were testing against Loam night and day, but we’re in a spot where no one is preparing for Loam, and there are huge advantages to be reaped from that. Plugging a few holes in the deck’s strategy – however feebly – might be enough, combined with the playtesting advantage, to dig up some gold from this forgotten deck.
TEPS
Problems
I’ve heard two explanations for the decline of TEPS. One is that it did not hold up well to discard, and two of the most popular decks at Valencia were Rock (with Duress, Therapy, and Deed for Lotus Blooms and other small artifacts) and Dredge (with a faster goldfish and a higher incidence of Cabal Therapies than Rock). The other reason I’ve heard is that Enduring Ideal had a comparable goldfish, was less vulnerable to graveyard hate, and could work around countermagic better thanks to Boseiju. The real answer is probably a combination of these, and I imagine Gaddock Teeg had something to do with the general disinterest in resurrecting the deck as well.
Environment Changes
Three relevant things have changed since the end of Valencia. One, Rock has been supplanted by PT Junk decks sporting Doran, which rarely play Pernicious Deed. Two, both the popularity and hype of Dredge (and graveyard hate, which efficiently stops key player Sins of the Past) have declined substantially since Valencia. Three, people are actually targeting Enduring Ideal with hate these days, while few are bothering to pack measures like Thorn of Amethyst for TEPS.
Solutions
PT Junk still plays plenty of discard spells, and with the Dorans and Goyfs, has a faster clock than Rock did. Dredge may be on the decline, but it’s far from gone. It’s good that the Deeds are less of a concern (I’ve blown up enough Lotus Blooms with Engineered Explosives in my time to know how disruptive that is against TEPS), but the Vindicates and the discard spells remain.
Short of adding countermagic to the deck, I don’t see much of a way to protect against Vindicate, but Stone Rain alone is not enough to hold back TEPS. I think the real issue is the discard, and the solution may be to simply add more countermagic to the deck. It’s trickier in TEPS to play draw spells than it is in other Blue decks, because all the Invasion lands make it take quite awhile to reach the four-mana mark for classic refueling machines Deep Analysis and Fact or Fiction, so I think some alternate card-drawers will be in order. I would start with the Sensei’s Divining Top builds of the deck, and would turn to things like Thirst for Knowledge and Night’s Whisper to refuel after taking a beating from discard spells.
Will that be enough? Honestly, I doubt it. TEPS is a deck that is brimming with role-player cards required for it to go off, and having to shave those numbers in order to fit in more draw spells is going to make the deck’s game-winning Mind’s Desires fizzle out more often. When your mana pool is empty, for example, it’s not helpful to flip a Thirst that draws you into a Channel the Suns, whereas simply running a Channel the Suns instead of the Thirst would have let you continue to go off.
Conclusions
Overall, the environment seems to have changed in TEPS’s favor, but I don’t think it’s enough. The Dredge matchup and the PT Junk matchups are not going to go well, and those are popular decks. There’s also the countermagic. At one PTQ last year I won a game against TEPS with Tron in which all I did was sit there and play out land after land (I was horribly flooded), then when he was going off, I cast Condescend at exactly the right moment, leaving him with only Seething Song Mana and causing him to stumble and fizzle out. Shackles decks like Next Level Blue will do the same, but with more efficient counters (Counterspell comes to mind) and while applying more pressure in the meantime.
I’m not sold on a comeback here. I think TEPS may want to keep laying low for the time being.
Scepter-Chant
Problems
The usual: Krosan Grip, Ancient Grudge, Pernicious Deed, and, as I understand it, the card Ichorid (before you get a Chant-lock, of course). Krosan Grip is generally worse for Scepter-Chant than Ancient Grudge is, and a lot of players made the swap at Valencia out of respect for Enduring Ideal. I continue to see that trend carried over into the PTQ season, and can’t help but wonder if there’s a better solution to that card than the state of the art.
The other broad problem that Scepter-Chant has is that the only boost it’s gotten from the past four sets has been Teferi, while other archetypes have been scaling up their power levels with things like Tarmogoyf, Bridge from Below, Gaddock Teeg, and Doran.
Environmental Changes
We see fewer Deeds and Ichorids now than we did in Valencia, but no progress has been made on the Krosan Grip front. Unfortunately, the power level problem has not gone away either.
Solutions
It remains a mystery to me that Scepter-Chant has never successfully run the Top-Counterbalance combo (to my knowledge). The deck plays mostly two-mana cards, has a couple of three-drops in Thirst for Knowledge and Cunning Wish, and a couple of four-drops in Wrath and Fact or Fiction. That’s the composition you need to run Counterbalance, and playing Counterbalance would give the deck another way to close games after having slowed the opponent down with early counters and Wraths.
It would also give the deck an opportunity to defend itself against Ancient Grudge – and, to a lesser extent, Krosan Grip (unless you can keep two three-drops floating on top, you have to play a bit of a guessing game to determine if they’re going to go for the Grip on upkeep or after you’ve drawn for the turn), without the need for Teferi. Perhaps it’s the fact that squeezing in Counterbalances would saturate the deck with late-game cards, but I’m surprised that I can only recall one or two writers mentioning the idea in the past.
On the creature front, I think Scepter-Chant needs to man up and realize that although Fire/Ice and Lightning Helix are the sexiest imprint targets available, they just don’t get it done against the format’s creatures anymore. Goyf and Doran don’t care about either card, and nearly every creature deck is playing the former if not the latter. I’m not experienced enough with the deck to say if removing Helix and Fire/Ice as imprint targets will stop the deck from closing games, but I suspect if you have Smother imprinted on a Scepter against a beatdown deck, they will have such a tough time keeping anything on the board, you can use a simple Cunning Wish for Pulse of the Fields to stay out of burn range until you find Counterbalance or an actual finisher.
Another option I haven’t seen explored often is Vedalken Shackles. As creature-thrashing cards go, Shackles is among the best, and although it suffers from splash damage on the artifact removal any opponent will bring in against Scepter-Chant anyway, that can be a blessing in disguise when the opponent Grips your Shackles and then watches you untap and Chant-lock him.
Conclusions
Scepter-Chant might have a shot at making a comeback, but I think it will need to make some fundamental changes to do so. At the very least, it will need to recognize that Tarmogoyf cannot be an auto-Wrath threat; Wraths need to be used as board sweepers, and having to save them for one creature is unacceptable when options like Vedalken Shackles and splashing Black instead of Red are around. Counterbalance would be more of an experiment than a necessity, but I think the deck needs to experiment and break out of the classic U/W/r formula that is no longer serving it well if it is to succeed again at the PTQ level.
Takeaways
If you buy Antonino DeRosa’s view that good players are those who win the games they “should win” (based on both players’ decks and draws), and everyone else just punts the games that are good on paper, running a deck that no one is playtesting against confers huge advantages. People have been justifying homebrew decks (often claiming they are “rogue”) on these advantages for years, but I’m talking about proven, successful decks that have only just fallen out of favor because the environment changed.
This doesn’t just apply to the three decks I talked about today, either. Any unpopular strategy you can identify that has only a few flaws (which you think you can overcome) will come with it an inherent gap in quality plays between you and your opponent — in your favor, and this is exactly the time in the season to start looking for these strategies.
Until next week, good luck at those PTQs!
Richard Feldman
Team :S
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